Southport
A little bit about Southport and the area around it...
Technically, Southport is the little fishing village by the river docks at the mouth of the river in the Dragon River Canyon.
It is overlooked by Dragonsbane keep, which is starting to overgrow it's outer walls and sprawl into the surrounding farmland, including a small area of heavier industry just outside the walls to the 'North'.
Starflower Academy ... whose humble beginnings are now hidden by extravagant architecture and crowded, vertically stacked, canyons of student accommodations, workshops and classrooms, is just over the two rivers to the 'South-West'. It has it's own larger docks, and is isolated in a little side-pocket in the canyon, which is possibly an ex-quarry and the source of the stone used to build the Dragons Tail Ramp... if local legends are to be believed...!
The Academy and the Keep work together to staff the watchtowers spread along the coast and maintain the mechanisms that, when activated, become a spiderweb of energy that can detect and befuddle anyone who is not welcome.
Just 'north' of the village is the 'Dark tower', surrounded by a little patch of forest that no one dares enter... Except perhaps, once a generation, a few youngsters will dare each other to explore. They return changed, strangely mature & refuse to talk about what happened... So it is not generally known what is really in there. Plenty of folk who never entered the forest will speculate given half a chance though. If you look down from the cliffs above, all you see is an ordinary looking tower in a clearing in the heart of the forest.
Behind the Dark tower is a small cave - an alternative access route up to the keep for those that fear the more open stairs. This is also access to the Crypt Caverns.
'East' of the village is a cave that leads to the Watch-Tower at the top of the Dragon's Tail Ramp, as well as accessing under the Tail to the coast ... a relatively safe swimming spot thaqt is popular on summer afternoons. There may or may not be secret tunnels accessing the basement of the Dragon's Tail Tavern (just near the road from the Watch-Tower), and possibly some going all the way to the crypt caverns.
In the far 'South-West' is a larger cave opening, which is used as part of the student initiation process. At the end of their novice studies, they are shipped around to the cave.... to graduate and become apprentices, they must find their way back to the academy through the maze of caverns riddling the cliffs ... which are home to many interesting things.
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I just finished this map for my Patreon supporters. After having the sketch it was based on sitting around gathering dust for nearly 10 years, I figured it was about time to bring it to life.
It was an interesting challenge, as I wanted to try and draw a top-down map of a deep, vertically stacked settlement as part of it - it turned out way better than I had expected. Will have to try it again now!
I did a Work in progress thread for this one ... it was a little scattered because I kept forgetting that I was doing one. WIP Thread HERE
Southport was mostly drawn in Procreate on an ipad... first time I have managed to nearly finish one on there, usually, for maps this big, I port over to Photoshop after using procreate for the sketch stage only.
Then finished in Photoshop on my laptop + the good old Wacom Intuos tablet. the photoshop part of the process was the frame/paper, text and final color grading.
Anyways... enjoy exploring ... and check out the WIP thread to see it in FULL colour :-)
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Originally Posted by Adfor
